Corrine12
Active Member
And is tallow the same as lard?
Best Sub for Tallow?
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jcandleattic
Well-Known Member
Tallow is beef fat, lard is pig fat, so no, not the same, and they also have different properties.
Dictionary meaning of tallow:
noun: tallow
So, yes, lard is a form of tallow, but it is made from pig fat.
There are many types of tallow, bear tallow, deer tallow, beef tallow, and so on. If you look at some of the different soap and lye calculators out there (there are many, many available), you will see the variety. As jcandleattic says, they do have different properties (look at the fatty acid profiles in the calculators) and often require differing amounts of lye to saponify.
noun: tallow
- a hard fatty substance made from rendered animal fat, used in making candles and soap.
So, yes, lard is a form of tallow, but it is made from pig fat.
There are many types of tallow, bear tallow, deer tallow, beef tallow, and so on. If you look at some of the different soap and lye calculators out there (there are many, many available), you will see the variety. As jcandleattic says, they do have different properties (look at the fatty acid profiles in the calculators) and often require differing amounts of lye to saponify.
jcandleattic
Well-Known Member
OOPS, you are correct. I knew that! LOL I just always think of tallow as beef fat, so my bad. Thanks for the correction @earlene
ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
It depends what you want to achieve.
Everyone has to make this decision by themselves, and we are here to exchange our knowledge in the first place.
A great place to look out for oil substitutes (for whatever reason) is the oil list at Soapee:
http://soapee.com/oilsClick at the first tab “Properties” and sort for whatever you think is most important (in the case of tallow/lard, the most sensible choice is “longevity”). Search for the oil in question and look what it is surrounded by. If you want to have a more in-depth look, select the “Fatty acids – Common” tab.
Many of the database entries are absurdly expensive or just impossible to buy, or not worth trying for other reasons, but some might be worth a closer look. (I spotted Japan wax this way (yes, it is one of the obscure, absurdly expensive ingredients) and fell in love with it.)
Have fun!
- If you found an intriguing looking soap recipe with tallow and want to try a vegan variant of it while changing as little else as possible: palm oil, or cocoa butter, or a blend cocoa+palm or cocoa+shea. You can fine-tune to your likings, the fatty acid profile can be arbitrarily close, but the behaviour (speed of trace, curing time, colour, appearance and smell of the soap bar, lathering) will always differ (which doesn't have to be a bad thing).
- If it's about the price-performance ratio, then it's a sad truth in our times that cheap animal fats are pretty much unbeatable as hard oils for soapmaking (on a hobbyist scale not even beaten by palm oil). A careful blend of HO sunflower/safflower oil + soy wax (or palm stearin) can replace tallow to some degree, though with a very different saponification behaviour.
- Things become even more complicated when you think further and include global trade networks. Cattle live everywhere. Some here have just asked their local butcher for some tallow, and he was glad to get rid of it – for free! Sourcing within mere kilometres around your location. On the other hand, I think I don't have to once again reiterate the miseries of child labour on cocoa plantations, homeless Orangutans, GMO/pesticide co-dependency, CO₂ emissions of globalised commodity flows…
Everyone has to make this decision by themselves, and we are here to exchange our knowledge in the first place.
A great place to look out for oil substitutes (for whatever reason) is the oil list at Soapee:
http://soapee.com/oilsClick at the first tab “Properties” and sort for whatever you think is most important (in the case of tallow/lard, the most sensible choice is “longevity”). Search for the oil in question and look what it is surrounded by. If you want to have a more in-depth look, select the “Fatty acids – Common” tab.
Many of the database entries are absurdly expensive or just impossible to buy, or not worth trying for other reasons, but some might be worth a closer look. (I spotted Japan wax this way (yes, it is one of the obscure, absurdly expensive ingredients) and fell in love with it.)
Have fun!
To be fair, most of the time when people say "tallow" without specifying what it came from, they mean beef tallow.OOPS, you are correct. I knew that! LOL I just always think of tallow as beef fat, so my bad. Thanks for the correction @earlene
Corrine12
Active Member
@ResolvableOwl Thank you immensely for taking the time to respond.
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If you dig around on the forum, there is a recipe for a vegan oil blend that replaces lard. I think it is @IrishLass baby, I've used it several times and it is better (IMO) than lard or tallow. It's on my list to do an experiment comparing 100% lard, 100% tallow, and 100% of the vegan blend... even though 100% lard or tallow soaps make me gag with the animal smell.
That said, a few years ago I switched out lard for tallow in my recipes. It "seems" that bars are a bit harder, but I only base that on the wait time for stamping between the lard and tallow soaps. With the lard soaps I always had to wait until the next day (12-24 hours) to stamp, but with tallow soaps I can stamp right after cutting, worst wait is 2 hours if I've unmolded a bit earlier than usual. The other thing I notice is that tallow doesn't smell as much lard in the soap. I use 25% in my recipe, and the lard soaps always smelled like bacon to me. Tallow I only notice a slight aroma. I do not notice a difference in cleansing, although tallow is supposed to be more cleansing than lard.
To clarify, when I say tallow, I mean beef tallow.
That said, a few years ago I switched out lard for tallow in my recipes. It "seems" that bars are a bit harder, but I only base that on the wait time for stamping between the lard and tallow soaps. With the lard soaps I always had to wait until the next day (12-24 hours) to stamp, but with tallow soaps I can stamp right after cutting, worst wait is 2 hours if I've unmolded a bit earlier than usual. The other thing I notice is that tallow doesn't smell as much lard in the soap. I use 25% in my recipe, and the lard soaps always smelled like bacon to me. Tallow I only notice a slight aroma. I do not notice a difference in cleansing, although tallow is supposed to be more cleansing than lard.
To clarify, when I say tallow, I mean beef tallow.
I don't think that it's a sad thing that animal fats are an amazing and cheap soaping resource - animals are raised for food whether we like it or not, and the fat is a by product of that which we can make sure is not wasted. And as a by product, it is likely to be cheaper than oils from farmed plants where the oil is the main reason for growing them
ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
However, the question remains how much of “plants where the [calories] is the main reason for growing them” the animals were fed during their lives, if the environmental footprint argument is valid or self-deceptive.
Transparency is maybe in reach for the local butcher, but not everyone renders their own tallow. Who reads your ingredient lists/recipes? Can you be sure for industrial agriculture (supermarket, soapmaking bulk suppliers)? Do you want to send the signal “When in doubt, I'm fine with parasitically gaining benefits for the justification of harm to animals, methane emissions, and soybean monocultures in South America”?
So many (seemingly) easy answers to complicated questions! So many contradictions! I don't see an alternative to always keep some level of skepticism.
Transparency is maybe in reach for the local butcher, but not everyone renders their own tallow. Who reads your ingredient lists/recipes? Can you be sure for industrial agriculture (supermarket, soapmaking bulk suppliers)? Do you want to send the signal “When in doubt, I'm fine with parasitically gaining benefits for the justification of harm to animals, methane emissions, and soybean monocultures in South America”?
So many (seemingly) easy answers to complicated questions! So many contradictions! I don't see an alternative to always keep some level of skepticism.
Mscookie
Member
Mscookie
Member
Genuine :just wanted to say I admire you as a civic compassionate person, one of many on this soapers forum!
I think that you misunderstood me - the impact of tallow/lard would essentially be rendering and transport costs as the animals would be fed and slaughtered regardless. If no one in the world used commercially produced animal fats for anything at all the number of animals raised for meat would not change, which would make it somewhat misleading to talk about the environmental impact of raising the animals in relation to using the fats in soaping.
To discuss what signals it sends in that way starts to drift in to virtue signalling if you look at it objectively. And besides, as I don't sell, I don't have to worry about people's misinformed* positions.
* Example that a soap HAS to be vegan and palm free because animal products are ALWAYS bad and palm is ALWAYS bad, and the alternative oils are ALWAYS good. That's clearly nonsense, and if anyone doesn't want to accept a gift of my soap because it's not vegan or palm free then it's up to them. I don't have to compromise to please them
ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
That's an interesting hypothesis, and I'm curious on which sources you are relying for it? You appear to be interested in an objective, unemotional and economical point of view on this discussion, and I very much honour such attempts! There is too much whataboutism and FUD in these debates, time to enrich them with hard facts. I'm happy to be convinced! But on the other hand I also know too much about the big-money meat industry, to be very skeptical that they have never tried to monetise animal fats.
Okay, it wouldn't change overly much - sorry, I didn't realise that we were going to be pedantic about this, but as it's a forum online and we have to different views, I should have expected it!
We can position it the other way - please show me the instances where pigs and cows are raised just for their fat, rather than fat being the byproduct of the animals being raised for meat
We can position it the other way - please show me the instances where pigs and cows are raised just for their fat, rather than fat being the byproduct of the animals being raised for meat
ResolvableOwl
Notorious Lyear
I'm not sure who you want to convince of what. It appeared to me that everyone (including me) has already settled with their self-deceptive selective perception of the world and its numbers, and I have many better places to put my energy into than escalating provocations. I respect differing opinions on this topic, but I expect other to do this too, and not fall for confirmation bias in one breath with claims of a rational approach.
Tempted as I am to address the accidental hijack, the topic of this thread is "What is the best substitution for tallow", so I think I should try to address @Corrine12's original question.
Not knowing if it is related to availability, family or even personal objections to tallow (be it smell or otherwise), or cost or some other reason, I will turn to looking at the attributes of beef tallow versus pig tallow (aka Lard) and other possible fats that might fill the bill, using the SMF Soap Builder lye calculator. Images are from the lye calculator here at SMF.
Beef tallow has more Stearic acid than Lard, which means that tallow will create a harder and longer lasting bar of soap than the same amount of lard will do. Beef Tallow also has more Lauric & Myristic acids, meaning it has a bit more cleansing properties, but definitely not enough to be harsh on the skin. Both are low in Linoleic and have no Ricinoleic, so should be less likely to be prone to rancidity in soap, although there are some issues with lard in that regard for some soapmakers, but that's covered in other threads. Both produce creamy lather, but are quite low on bubbles, so adding a fat that produces bubbles in the final formula is desirable.
Cost-wise, and availability-wise, in the US (at least in most US states where I travel), Lard is more available if one wants to purchase in a grocery store, making it a good substitute if animal fats are not an issue. Both are available from many bulk soap oil suppliers for online ordering, so it comes down to cost and personal choice at that point.
Others have addressed non-animal fat substitutes to a degree, but I'd like to put forth a mix of Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil (Flakes), Cocoa Butter and Shea Butter as an option (which would only be a PORTION of the formula to replace the same amount of Tallow. In this example if 500 grams of Tallow was in the recipe, my percentages total that 500 grams. This is to show the similar outcome if subbed for tallow:
This is just one way to get the close to the same properties with close to the same fatty acid profiles by using non-animal fats. It is not exact, but with a little tweaking with whatever fats the soapmaker has access to, a substitution formula can be found to use in the place of Beef Tallow. If one wants to sub for another particular fat, the same process applies.
Of course, if grocery store or other non-online purchase availability is the reason for wanting a substitution, then my proposed non-animal fats formula would be less of an option. Although Palm Oil in the form of Spectrum Shortening (hydrogenated palm oil) is available in some grocery stores (it is pricey), and Coco Butter is available in many stores in a push-up container in the cosmetics area (Walgreen's, Dollar General, etc.), shea butter & PKO are not so available in easy to drive to stores.
Not knowing if it is related to availability, family or even personal objections to tallow (be it smell or otherwise), or cost or some other reason, I will turn to looking at the attributes of beef tallow versus pig tallow (aka Lard) and other possible fats that might fill the bill, using the SMF Soap Builder lye calculator. Images are from the lye calculator here at SMF.
Beef tallow has more Stearic acid than Lard, which means that tallow will create a harder and longer lasting bar of soap than the same amount of lard will do. Beef Tallow also has more Lauric & Myristic acids, meaning it has a bit more cleansing properties, but definitely not enough to be harsh on the skin. Both are low in Linoleic and have no Ricinoleic, so should be less likely to be prone to rancidity in soap, although there are some issues with lard in that regard for some soapmakers, but that's covered in other threads. Both produce creamy lather, but are quite low on bubbles, so adding a fat that produces bubbles in the final formula is desirable.
Cost-wise, and availability-wise, in the US (at least in most US states where I travel), Lard is more available if one wants to purchase in a grocery store, making it a good substitute if animal fats are not an issue. Both are available from many bulk soap oil suppliers for online ordering, so it comes down to cost and personal choice at that point.
Others have addressed non-animal fat substitutes to a degree, but I'd like to put forth a mix of Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil (Flakes), Cocoa Butter and Shea Butter as an option (which would only be a PORTION of the formula to replace the same amount of Tallow. In this example if 500 grams of Tallow was in the recipe, my percentages total that 500 grams. This is to show the similar outcome if subbed for tallow:
This is just one way to get the close to the same properties with close to the same fatty acid profiles by using non-animal fats. It is not exact, but with a little tweaking with whatever fats the soapmaker has access to, a substitution formula can be found to use in the place of Beef Tallow. If one wants to sub for another particular fat, the same process applies.
Of course, if grocery store or other non-online purchase availability is the reason for wanting a substitution, then my proposed non-animal fats formula would be less of an option. Although Palm Oil in the form of Spectrum Shortening (hydrogenated palm oil) is available in some grocery stores (it is pricey), and Coco Butter is available in many stores in a push-up container in the cosmetics area (Walgreen's, Dollar General, etc.), shea butter & PKO are not so available in easy to drive to stores.
Corrine12
Active Member
@theefficaciousgentleman I don’t use animal products.
